Science Musings Blog

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Beauty and terror

The great Jesuit scientist/mystic Teilhard de Chardin wrote: "It is a terrifying thing to have been born: I mean, to find oneself, without having willed it, swept irrevocably along on a torrent of fearful energy."

Throughout his life, Teilhard sought to turn the terror into an overwhelming joy. He died in 1955, in exile, with much of his life's work officially censored by the Church to which he had dedicated his life. Near the end, he wrote: "How is it possible that I am so incapable of passing on to others...the vision of the marvelous unity in which I find myself immersed?"